The Eden Area Livability Initiative (EALI) Education Working group met for the fourth time on Tuesday, August 19, 2014, in this second phase of the EALI II process.

The following goal rose to the top from the charrette in November:

Advocate and provide avenues for increasing resources and opportunities for all students and schools in the Eden Area.

The Public Safety and Realignment working group identified the first project, and during the first three meetings, the Education working group identified the second project as follows:

Project #1: Identify how parents, community members, schools, and public agencies can collaborate to build educational, preventative, and re-entry programs to prevent youth crime and reduce recidivism in the Eden Area.

Project #2: Develop a resource clearinghouse to identify and coordinate community-based organizations and businesses that provide meaningful learning opportunities for students, families, and staff (e.g., community service, mentoring, college-and-career readiness, parent education, internships, opportunities for student and staff engagement).

Project # 1 was added to the Education group from the Public Safety and Realignment working group from their #1 goal that came out of the charrette: Prevent crime and reduce recidivism. Although there were complaints that this goal was not genuinely a vision from the Education Group and that it changes the spirit of the projects, I personally think it fits. The school districts involved in this working group have the broadest reach in the unincorporated area, reaching more families than Alameda County Public Health, Deputy Sheriffs Activity League, and the Reach Ashland Community Center. Working through these groups AND the K-12 education institutions creates the potential of creating significant change.

I missed two of the three prior meetings but what was communicated to me was that these were meetings that were dense in presentations from organizations in Alameda County that already have services in place to address “at risk youth” issues. These presentations laid the groundwork to start brainstorming ideas on how to merge services and create functional collaborations so that programs and services already in place can enhance education. I see the big picture as figuring out how to bring all of the organizations fully into partnerships in order to give Eden Area youth the best education opportunities possible.

Since there had been data presentations over the last three meetings, I was hopeful that this fourth meeting would get down to the work at hand. We still had work to do trying to merge the two goals, as well as clearly define our target for intervention.

We had a long and robust discussion about the virtues of targeting a broad population: “youth and their families.” We had an equally rich discussion about including just K-12 youth (with or without their families), and we also debated the merits of including youth 18-24 years old along with K-12 youth. Because funds are limited and because of the involvement of the school districts (Castro Valley Unified, Hayward Unified, and San Lorenzo Unified), we agreed on K-12 youth. NOW we can move forward and make some plans.

We spent a lot of time discussing the process we were going to use to develop a plan, rather than rolling up our sleeves and starting work on the plan. As a result, we never made it to the agenda item that would allow us time to look back at programs that have had success and those that have not. It will go on next meeting’s agenda. “What worked, what didn’t work, and why” will be important in planning a program to shape the projects for this working group. Despite being bogged down in process planning, I think the lengthy discussions from last night’s meeting are a step in the right direction. We are now moving beyond presentations on youth programs, and we have an understanding of what services are out there. We are now poised and ready to tackle the issues of coordinating services and integrating them into the public education institutions in the unincorporated area to give our students the best opportunities.

I am hopeful that the enthusiasm brought by the community members to look critically at the situation and plan strategically for the future will generate effective collaborations among the many agencies that serve our Eden Area Youth. I am proud to be a part of this process creating a more livable community in the Eden Area through collaboration and innovation.